Saturday, January 25, 2014

Conference at BYU Law School on the Global Commons

I greatly enjoyed the conference this weekend at BYU in Provo, Utah. Brigham Daniels and his students did a great job organizing the conference. All of the presentations were first-class, and it was great to catch up with some old friends I hadn't seen in a while, especially Buzz Thompson, Jim Salzman, Carol Rose, Lee Fennell and (current BYU Dean) Jim Rasband. I also enjoyed getting to know better Eric Freyfogle and Marcelynne Burke, and especially some of the young up-and-coming scholars writing about commons issues, including in addition to Brigham, Hannah Wiseman, Jonathan Rosenbloom, Black Hudson, and Zack Bray.

I presented my paper (co-authored with Mike McGinnis and Graham Epstein), on "Digging Deeper into Hardin's Pasture: The Complex Institutional Structure of the 'Tragedy of the Commons,'" which can be downloaded from SSRN (here). That paper will not appear in the symposium issue of the BYU Law Review, stemming from the conference; however, I might have another paper to include in that issue; or I might write for the issue a short set of reflections on Elinor Ostrom's importance for legal, and especially property, scholarship (the conference was dedicated in her honor).

For those who have never been to BYU or Provo, here's a photo taken from the law school:

The conference included dinner trips to, respectively, Sundance and Park City. On the way to Park City, we stopped briefly at Bridal Veil falls, where I snapped the photo to the left.

Later this morning, I'm taking the train into Salt Lake City to grab lunch with a couple more old friends, Robin and Don Craig, before catching a late-afternoon flight back to Indy.

Teaching and Research Interests

I teach Property, Environmental Law, Natural Resources Law, Land Use, and Law & Economics. My research interests are interdisciplinary, focusing on the law and economics of property and environmental protection.

Disclaimer

Opinions expressed on this blog do not necessarily represent the views of Indiana University or any person other than the author.